How Can We Avoid Pseudoscience?
When the U.S. President’s claims about COVID-19 are opposed to what the science shows, how can we avoid spreading misinformation?
Mark Twain once famously wrote a famous line: that “A lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth has put its boots on.”
It’s a fitting statement on misinformation — especially because Mark Twain didn’t create this quote, although it’s often attributed to him. Instead, it appears to be descended from a comment made centuries earlier, by satirist Jonathan Swift.
In this age of the internet and always-on media leading to stories spreading around the digital world at lightning speed, it doesn’t take much for a comment to go viral and make its way to millions of people. Even, and perhaps especially, when that comment isn’t true.
Misinformation seems to spread faster when there’s a crisis or a disaster of some sort; perhaps the combination of breaking news, plus the natural desire by many people to find a solution to a seemingly unsolvable problem, increases the willingness to believe what’s heard.
Consider a few of the recent bits of “viral misinformation” that have been spread related to the COVID-19 crisis:
- COVID-19 was some sort of “super-pathogen” cooked in a lab. Sequencing of the virus has shown that it’s closely related…
